Gautam Adani agreed to pay $6 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that he broke US securities rules by making false and misleading representations about Adani Green Energy Ltd.
The proposed settlement also involves an agreement from his nephew Sagar to pay $12 million. If finalized, the deal would be a significant boon to the Adani Group, whose interests range from coal mining to airports.
Gautam Adani chairs the Adani Group conglomerate and Sagar Adani is executive director at Adani Green Energy. Neither the conglomerate nor its corporate units was sued by the SEC. The company denied the US allegations at the time.
The Justice Department is also moving to drop fraud charges against Adani in a parallel criminal case, Bloomberg News reported earlier. Such a move, in addition to an SEC settlement, could clear the decks for the conglomerate to return to international capital markets and resume its aggressive expansion strategy.
The SEC sued in November 2024, alleging Gautam Adani spearheaded an effort to pay or promise hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Indian officials to induce them to enter contracts that Adani Green needed to develop India’s largest solar power plant project. At the same time, the regulator said he and his nephew falsely touted the company’s compliance with antibribery principles and laws in connection with a $750 million bond offering.
